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Old September 20th, 2009, 06:07 AM   #34
CZroe
CPT Falcon
 
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Name: J.Emmett Turner
Location: Newnan, GA
Join Date: Apr 2009

Motorcycle(s): '08 CP Blue EX250J, '97 unpainted EX250F, 2nd '97 unpainted EX250F (no engine), '07 black EX250F

Posts: A lot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by adouglas View Post
Two words.

West Virginia.

John Denver was right, when it comes to places to ride.

On my vacation there were lots of roads where the speed limit was 55, but every mile or so there'd be another road sign with a squggly line on it and a recommended speed of 35, 25 or even 15 mph.

Fan-farking-tastic.
I have family near Princeton, WV, and all the GA dealers screwed me out of my bikes (with deposits!), so I visited them and grabbed one of the last '08s from the last shipment right across the border in VA.

Of course, I had to take it right back into the mountains of WV during my break-in. Some of my family had recently moved after the death of a family member so I had to find their new place. Off the highways, it was terrifying. There was gravel on every corner of the road due to constricted lane size forcing passing cars off the road to pass, my Google Maps directions were all wrong, the rural roads were labeled as poorly as possible (how can Country Route 5 possibly go in THREE directions with the proper one unlabled?!), and you couldn't see around any corner when you were winding up a mountain side-street.

On one such road with a car riding my ass (literally only a few feet behind me) and a deep steeply dipping right turn that cut into the side of the mountain leaving a wall of rock and dirt on my right, I decided that I'd rather pull over than get run over when I inevitably encounter gravel and have to stop or slow down. Wouldn't you know... the mountain channeled water down that wall and along the side causing a ditch so I didn't have a place to set my right foot when I pulled over. I didn't want to lean left into the lane with the car so I stopped, then leaned right, and suddenly found my leg freely dangling between the bike and the wall of dirt.

My mirror and bar-end sunk into soft dirt but my tail plastic must have been touching a rock because it has a black mark on the corner. Like my freely-swinging leg, nothing else on the bike was touching anything, including the exhaust. Because the handle bars sunk into the dirt, the lean angle was enough that I couldn't pull it out easily on the first try and the tail ended up rubbing into the dirt/rock until it had that black mark under the paint.

So, yeah... I didn't go down but the WV roads are directly responsible for my only cosmetic damage in 9k miles or riding my Ninjette.

Edit: Oh wait... I forgot about the tiny crack that extend forward from my right blinker and onto my front fairing. I had a bike/cable lock threaded through my tire and steering when I tried to drive off and bent something underneath. They told me it was likely just a headlight mount or something non-structural. I've added thousands of miles since then without issue and no one even notices unless I point it out, despite not even popping it back down (I'd need to take them off and bend whatever it is back).
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